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Nature provides us with abundant examples of how large numbers of individuals can make decisions without the coordination of a central authority. Social insects, birds, fishes, and many other living collectives, rely on simple interaction…
Following extensive numerical experiments, it has been suggested that the evolution of competing computer programs in artificial life simulations shows signs of being a self-organized critical process. The primary evidence for this claim…
Sensors play a fundamental role in achieving the complex behaviors typically found in biological organisms. However, their potential role in the design of artificial agents is often overlooked. This often results in the design of robots…
Understanding protein dynamics are essential for deciphering protein functional mechanisms and developing molecular therapies. However, the complex high-dimensional dynamics and interatomic interactions of biological processes pose…
The continuity of life and its evolution, we proposed, emerge from an interactive group process manifested in networks of interaction. We term this process \textit{survival-of-the-fitted}. Here, we reason that survival of the fitted results…
We consider the effect of network structure on the evolution of a population. Models of this kind typically consider a population of fixed size and distribution. Here we consider eco-evolutionary dynamics where population size and…
Can reproduction alone in the context of survival produce intelligence in our machines? In this work, self-replication is explored as a mechanism for the emergence of intelligent behavior in modern learning environments. By focusing purely…
Previous publications by the authors put forward the argument that Lifelike Cellular Automata can be treated as a bona fide example of livingness in and of themselves, not simply a toy analogue to biological life. Traits known to be…
Populations of heterogeneous cells play an important role in many biological systems. In this paper we consider systems where each cell can be modelled by an ordinary differential equation. To account for heterogeneity, parameter values are…
Biological neural networks can perform complex computations to predict their environment, far above the limited predictive capabilities of individual neurons. While conventional approaches to understanding these computations often focus on…
Biological activities are often seen entrained onto the day-night and other celestial mechanical cycles (e.g., seasonal and lunar), but studies on the origin of life have largely not accounted for such periodic external environmental…
While evolution has inspired algorithmic methods of heuristic optimisation, little has been done in the way of using concepts of computation to advance our understanding of salient aspects of biological phenomena. We argue that under…
The ubiquity of modules in biological networks may result from an evolutionary benefit of a modular organization. For instance, modularity may increase the rate of adaptive evolution, because modules can be easily combined into new…
In this paper we statistically characterise the bio-aerosol background in an urban environment. To do this we measure concentration levels of naturally occurring microbiological material in the atmosphere over a two month period. Naturally…
We generalize the poissonian evolving random graph model of Bauer and Bernard to deal with arbitrary degree distributions. The motivation comes from biological networks, which are well-known to exhibit non poissonian degree distribution. A…
The multifarious internal workings of organisms are difficult to reconcile with a single feature defining a state of being alive. Indeed, definitions of life rely on emergent properties (growth, capacity to evolve, agency) only symptomatic…
We introduce and analyze a general model of a population evolving over a network of selectively neutral genotypes. We show that the population's limit distribution on the neutral network is solely determined by the network topology and…
Regulatory networks consist of interacting molecules with a high degree of mutual chemical specificity. How can these molecules evolve when their function depends on maintenance of interactions with cognate partners and simultaneous…
The capacity to adapt can greatly influence the success of systems that need to compensate for damaged parts, learn how to achieve robust performance in new environments, or exploit novel opportunities that originate from new technological…
Laboratory experiments with bacterial colonies, under well-controlled conditions often lead to evolutionary diversification, where at least two ecotypes emerge from an initially monomorphic population. Empirical evidence suggests that such…